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Gold, Silver, Real Estate and Crypto

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"Gold is money, everything else is credit" - J.P. Morgan

"Paper money always eventually returns to its intrinsic value - zero." - Voltaire

dr-hero-img-03-28-25-650x360.jpg
 
According to the Basel III banking agreement, gold is a First Tier Asset Class. Stocks and non-government bonds are not. For the last few years, central banks around the world with the notable exception of the Fed have been buying gold and selling dollars. July 1,2025 is the final date when everyone has to come into compliance with Basel III, and the main laggard, the US, will then come into full compliance. Many suspect that this is why there has been such a frantic repatriation of gold from Europe to the US in the last few months.

Gold and silver are monetary metals and have a foreign exchange cross with all fiat currencies. The only time I have ever heard of a central bank buying stocks to impact currency value was the Swiss central bank about 15 years ago. They wanted to halt the rapid appreciation of the Swiss franc over the currency of their biggest trading partners, the euro. The currency appreciation was hurting their exports. They did it by digitally creating a bunch of new Swiss francs and buying American stocks with them. That did the trick and steadied the relationship between the euro and the Swiss franc, halting the rapid rise of the Swiss franc.
 
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Two interesting to me happenings are both based on the spot price increase of gold and silver. The Treasury has gold valued at $42 per ounce since the early 70's. If the Treasury re-valued gold to it's current spot price it's estimated to be about $800 million. This would also cause the spot prices of both gold and silver to increase. If they had the cohonies to do so, and they might, they could re-value gold higher than the current spot price.

I'm hearing about a new silver squeeze that could cause silver spot to increase into the $50's some where. I really didn't think it could hit $34 spot this year but it did.

Bill
 
easyrider said:
Two interesting to me happenings are both based on the spot price increase of gold and silver. The Treasury has gold valued at $42 per ounce since the early 70's. If the Treasury re-valued gold to it's current spot price it's estimated to be about $800 million. This would also cause the spot prices of both gold and silver to increase. If they had the cohonies to do so, and they might, they could re-value gold higher than the current spot price.

I'm hearing about a new silver squeeze that could cause silver spot to increase into the $50's some where. I really didn't think it could hit $34 spot this year but it did.

Bill
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Why bother with chump change silver, go for the "best" metal.

rho.jpg


https://science.howstuffworks.com/most-expensive-metal.htm#:~:text=in the world.-,Rhodium: The Most Expensive Precious Metal on Earth,precious metal on the planet.


Gold vs Stocks
gold_.jpg

https://www.macrotrends.net/2608/gold-price-vs-stock-market-100-year-chart

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wgold.jpg
 
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Brett said:
Why bother with chump change silver, go for the "best" metal.

View attachment 108465

https://science.howstuffworks.com/most-expensive-metal.htm#:~:text=in the world.-,Rhodium: The Most Expensive Precious Metal on Earth,precious metal on the planet.


Gold vs Stocks
View attachment 108466
https://www.macrotrends.net/2608/gold-price-vs-stock-market-100-year-chart

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View attachment 108468
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Brett, you are missing liquidity. Who buys and sells Rhodium? A hoard of the most precious metal in the world is worthless if no one knows enough about it to be willing to buy/sell it. . .
 
First Quarter 2025 movement of asset values:

Gold UP 19.03%
Silver UP 17.88%
Bitcoin DOWN 12.87%
S&P DOWN 4.10%
Dow DOWN 1.91%

I wish I had a number on real estate, but its movement is very specific to each area
 
Brett said:
There's a reason financial advisors recommend stocks and real estate for the long term





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Yeah, most of that reason has to do with how they make their own commissions. I am sure they were giving the same advice in 1929.

There is also a reason that central bankers around the world are piling into gold and gradually reducing their holdings of dollars.
 
Intrinsic Shmalue! Gold has plenty of utility. It makes worry-warts all nice & comfy in times of (always) trouble, speaking words of wisdom, let gold be.
I own a few % gold. Why not? Its website never goes down and it never gets sued by customers
 
WaikikiFirst said:
Intrinsic Shmalue! Gold has plenty of utility. It makes worry-warts all nice & comfy in times of (always) trouble, speaking words of wisdom, let gold be.
I own a few % gold. Why not? Its website never goes down and it never gets sued by customers
Click to expand...

I kind of thought it was interesting that people were lining up at Costco to buy gold. Like you and many others including me, they have enough gold or silver, to possibly buy a few or a few more than the next guy, carts of Costco groceries when they sell it. In contrast, JP Morgan holds over 750 million ounces of silver and an undisclosed amount of gold.

My guess is only 10% of Americans own physical gold or silver with an estimated 500 billion ounces of gold in private ownership. Like most wealth, the top .02% likely holds over 90% of the gold while the other 99.8% owns the rest. Since a person needs at least two silver coins to rub together for good luck my guess is many only have two coins, lol.

Bill
 
Carolinian said:
Yeah, most of that reason has to do with how they make their own commissions. I am sure they were giving the same advice in 1929.

There is also a reason that central bankers around the world are piling into gold and gradually reducing their holdings of dollars.
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Nope
But I suppose if you believe you are living in a repeat of the "GREAT" depression then yes, fill that basement safe with gold and silver



View attachment 108546

.Gold vs Stocks
View attachment 108548
https://www.macrotrends.net/2608/gold-price-vs-stock-market-100-year-chart
 
There are some countries where gold and silver are still used directly as money, in situations where paper money in problematic for some reason. In Venezuela, where people can still pan for and find gold in streams, many businesses have scales to weight gold to accept it as payment, where it is very welsome over the highly inflated paper Bolivar banknotes. In India, a while back, the government shocked the underground economy by suddenly demonetizing the largest denomination rupee banknote. Holders could redeem them if they could explain how they happened to have them, leaving those in the underground economy, which is rather large in India with worthless paper. Now gold and silver are widely accepted and preferred in the underground economy, and India is importing a lot of it, both the government and the private market.
 
Carolinian said:
There are some countries where gold and silver are still used directly as money, in situations where paper money in problematic for some reason. In Venezuela, where people can still pan for and find gold in streams, many businesses have scales to weight gold to accept it as payment, where it is very welsome over the highly inflated paper Bolivar banknotes. In India, a while back, the government shocked the underground economy by suddenly demonetizing the largest denomination rupee banknote. Holders could redeem them if they could explain how they happened to have them, leaving those in the underground economy, which is rather large in India with worthless paper. Now gold and silver are widely accepted and preferred in the underground economy, and India is importing a lot of it, both the government and the private market.
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I'm just not feeling the need to carry around gold coins (yet ;) )

But here's a South American city that loved crypto

crypt.jpg


https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/...ypto-ponzi-scheme.html?searchResultPosition=6
 
Brett said:
Nope
But I suppose if you believe you are living in a repeat of the "GREAT" depression then yes, fill that basement safe with gold and silver
Click to expand...

401K'and IRAs make it hard to own physical gold and silver within those plans. It is possible to own gold vaulted in the hands of a third party or paper gold ETF's but the latter have always had a question mark if they really have the bullion to back up the claims on their fund. Some bullion dealers will tell you there is a way to hold gold or silver yourself in an IRA based on questoniable interpretations of the Internal Revenue Code, but that is a chance many will not take. All of our gold and silver is outside our retirement plans. There is a way that is compliant with IRS regs to set up residential real estate inside an IRA, and we maintain an account with a financial institution that specializes in doing so.

Central banks worldwide, with the notable exception of the Fed, have been big buyers of gold over the last few years, often buying it by the ton. I suspect they have more expertise in looking into the economic future than anyone on these boards. I read, for example where the Polish zloty had gained against the dollar and was not surprised given that the Polish central bank has been a big buyer of gold. A depression may not be what they are seeing, but some other economic dislocation. With the extreme debt levels of many countries, including our own, there are lots of opportunities for things to go south.

The 1929 depression was triggered by the failure of a bank in Austria. Around the world, there are way too many zombe banks out there today. I could name a few of them for you starting with Deutsche Bank. An instrument that is widespread today that I do not think even existed in 1929 that has been called "a weapon of mass financial destruction" is the credit default swap, which is a huge market and Deutsche Bank is by far the biggest player in it worldwide. At a point a few years ago when Deutsche Bank was particularly vulnerable, the question was asked if the German government would bail them out if they crashed. The answer was that NO, it would take more than the annual GDP of Germany to bail out Deutsche Bank, and it was beyond even the EU as a whole doing so.

Faced with a 1929 scenario today, I personally think most governments would try to stop it by running the printing presses wide open, which would set up some other economic challenges.
 
Carolinian said:
401K'and IRAs make it hard to own physical gold and silver within those plans. It is possible to own gold vaulted in the hands of a third party or paper gold ETF's but the latter have always had a question mark if they really have the bullion to back up the claims on their fund. Some bullion dealers will tell you there is a way to hold gold or silver yourself in an IRA based on questoniable interpretations of the Internal Revenue Code, but that is a chance many will not take. All of our gold and silver is outside our retirement plans. There is a way that is compliant with IRS regs to set up residential real estate inside an IRA, and we maintain an account with a financial institution that specializes in doing so.

Central banks worldwide, with the notable exception of the Fed, have been big buyers of gold over the last few years, often buying it by the ton. I suspect they have more expertise in looking into the economic future than anyone on these boards. I read, for example where the Polish zloty had gained against the dollar and was not surprised given that the Polish central bank has been a big buyer of gold. A depression may not be what they are seeing, but some other economic dislocation. With the extreme debt levels of many countries, including our own, there are lots of opportunities for things to go south.

The 1929 depression was triggered by the failure of a bank in Austria. Around the world, there are way too many zombe banks out there today. I could name a few of them for you starting with Deutsche Bank. An instrument that is widespread today that I do not think even existed in 1929 that has been called "a weapon of mass financial destruction" is the credit default swap, which is a huge market and Deutsche Bank is by far the biggest player in it worldwide. At a point a few years ago when Deutsche Bank was particularly vulnerable, the question was asked if the German government would bail them out if they crashed. The answer was that NO, it would take more than the annual GDP of Germany to bail out Deutsche Bank, and it was beyond even the EU as a whole doing so.

Faced with a 1929 scenario today, I personally think most governments would try to stop it by running the printing presses wide open, which would set up some other economic challenges.
Click to expand...


hey, I get it
At some point the crazy times have to end .... right ?


great_tariff.jpg

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Gold vs Stocks
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gold_stk.jpg

https://www.macrotrends.net/2608/gold-price-vs-stock-market-100-year-chart

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easyrider said:
Historically, the s&p has been at about 10% over a long time span. What is the percentage increase of $100 after 70 years ? A compound interest calculator answers $106,428.

Bill
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this is just wrong. the average return has been 11-13%.
 
easyrider said:
I read that only a third of all workers are invested in stocks because most of this group has employer contributions.

Bill
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this is also wrong.

"62% of U.S. adults own stock"

www.fool.com

How Many Americans Own Stock? More Than You Think | The Motley Fool

How many Americans own stock? 62% of American adults, or around 158 million people, own stock. But there's more to the story.
www.fool.com www.fool.com

Bill if you always have wrong data, you're going to often reach bad conclusions and make bad decisions.
 
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